Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.
Hosea BallouI don’t know how much longer I’ll be around. I’ll probably be writing when the Lord says, ‚Maya, Maya Angelou, it’s time.‘
Maya AngelouAmong all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
Joseph AddisonWhat I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.
David BowieOf course, there are those critics – New York critics as a rule – who say, ‚Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it’s good but then she’s a natural writer.‘ Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.
Maya AngelouA novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.
Fyodor DostoevskyBroadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.
Winston ChurchillI promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.
Maya AngelouI knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.
Lana Del ReyI am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.
Paulo CoelhoNo tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.
Robert FrostI was saving the name of ‚Geisel‘ for the Great American Novel.
Dr. SeussLike anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.
Stephen KingI write for myself things that I’ve gone through.
Dolly PartonAll I wanted to do was write – at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didn’t need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children.
Paul AusterFor a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.
Ernest HemingwayI’m always just surprised when someone writes something about me.
Lana Del ReyBrevity is the soul of wit.
William ShakespeareI was a grade B housewife, maybe a B minus. But when I got time to write, I would be unable to finish a sentence. I had anxiety attacks. Partly it was a way of personifying the situation because I couldn’t breathe. I was surrounded by people and by duties. I was a housewife and the children’s mother, and I was judged on how I performed those roles.
Alice MunroExcessive literary production is a social offense.
George EliotSome of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what.
Margaret AtwoodAnd when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don’t think anyone in my family would really feel I’d done them an injustice by saying that. We didn’t see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.
Christopher HitchensI’m looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.
David BowieWhy did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.
Tennessee WilliamsA word after a word after a word is power.
Margaret AtwoodI’ve read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, ‚Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.‘ I don’t want to be part of that.
Matthew McConaugheyI liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.
Maya AngelouIt was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.
Kurt VonnegutDoing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.
Anthony BourdainLove is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.
Ray BradburyYou cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.
Stephen KingWriting music is just like writing a book.
Billie EilishIf I’m the people’s poet, then I ought to be in people’s hands – and, I hope, in their heart.
Maya AngelouWhy do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.
Alice MunroI’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.
Ernest HemingwayThe most deeply personal of my works are the non-fiction works, the autobiographical works, because there, I’m talking about myself very directly.
Paul AusterI started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels; I liked them.
Paul AusterI hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.
Harper LeeI’ve been writing since I was really young, so I considered myself a writer for a really long time.
Lana Del ReyI am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter.
Charles BukowskiWriting’s just as natural to me as getting up and cooking breakfast.
Dolly PartonThe writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.
Arnold SchwarzeneggerI don’t think about who the audience is for my books.
J. K. RowlingWhen I was born in 1920, the auto was only 20 years old. Radio didn’t exist. TV didn’t exist. I was born at just the right time to write about all of these things.
Ray BradburySome things get written more quickly than others, but I can’t really measure degrees of difficulty.
Paul AusterIf I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.
Margaret AtwoodI think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.
Ray BradburyThe ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.
Robert FrostI write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.
Jack LondonThere can be no better grounding for a lifetime as an author than to see humanity in all its various guises through the lens of the reporter for the town.
Terry PratchettEven those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
Blaise PascalWhen I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.
Tennessee WilliamsFiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.
Mark TwainNaturally, my stories are about women – I’m a woman. I don’t know what the term is for men who write mostly about men. I’m not always sure what is meant by ‚feminist.‘ In the beginning, I used to say, ‚Well, of course I’m a feminist.‘ But if it means that I follow a kind of feminist theory, or know anything about it, then I’m not.
Alice MunroThere is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
Oscar WildeAnd you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.
Jimmy BuffettLet blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
Warren BuffettRead over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Samuel JohnsonThey say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited ‚first chapters‘. I have indeed written many.
J. R. R. TolkienI only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.
Charles Bukowski